Wednesday, 16 February 2011

On yet another grey day stuck indoors with Erbie we took up some time by making cutouts, taking our inspiration from Joëlle Jolivet’s picture book: ‘Almost Everthing’. The vehicle spread is Erbie’s favourite so I copied some out badly onto plain paper. Erbie then helped colour them in and we got a grown up to help cut them out!

Erbie discovered they stuck rather well to the condensation on the windows.

Monday, 14 February 2011

Just wanted to share with you how much of a mug I am this Valentines Day. And to say: ‘big love to you all’. Things have been really tough – but Spring is on the way...

Available on the high street at Marks and Spencers for a fiver or online here.

I fell in love with the mug online and couldn’t believe it was from good old M&S. In the same line: ‘Circus Type’, there are tea-towels and tins - (cake and biscuit), which having seen first hand, I have to say are rather flimsey and not something I would recommend, however I cannot fault the mugs or teatowels. LOVE- LY.

Thursday, 3 February 2011

During the Summer I was tinkering with various ways to make an icecream-like dessert for Erbie, I got as far as frozen soya milk and vanilla essence lollies, which were palatable but more ice lolly than cream. Now I find that a young lady with a similar desire has already done all the hard work and got picked up by Dragons Den no less.

Kirsty Henshaw from Preston established Worthenshaws in 2009 which has now been repackaged as Freedom and her vanilla, strawberry or chocolate icecreamlike confection should be on the shelves in the UK’s supermarkets as we speak sweetie.

See: www.worthenshaws-freedom.co.uk where they also have good information on allergies

We had confirmation that Erbie is still allergic to milk or more specifically casein (milk protein) when his whole face swelled up last week – the cause an innocuous Chupa Chups lolly.

He has had Chupa Chups lollies before but I’m usually very vigilant and only allow the fruit flavoured ones. This time he insisted on vanilla – no milk in vanilla, right, I searched the ingredients and could only find vanilla flavour, so thought it would be okay. Half way through the lolly and halfway round Sainsbury’s he gave the lolly back (they do seem to know if something is wrong)and I noticed the tell tale hives all around his mouth. I finished the lolly, wiped him down and we hurried home, the hives disappeared and I thought nothing more about it.

The Spanish Chupa Chups logo designed by none other than Salvador Dali in 1969

Twenty minutes later his nose started streaming and the left side of his face started to swell up. His sinuses became so inflamed he looked like he’d done four rounds in the ring with Tyson. I gave him a dose of liquid Piriton (an off the shelf antihistamine) and whisked him out of the door as his top lip began to lose all definition.

Thankfully there is an A&E 10 minutes up the road, he fell asleep on the way. I kept telling myself he was fine, he’d just fallen asleep because it was nap time and the Piriton would have knocked him out, but I couldn’t stop the nagging doubt. His little fist gripped onto my finger so tightly, Ihad visions of the girl I’d seen having an asthma attack in class back in secondary school who went into seizure as the carried her out of the classroom, her left hand in rigour. I called his name over and over as I ran across the main road to the hospital.

Being English I waited in an orderly fashion at the reception desk as a vaguely familiar looking actor off the telly and his toddler with a gash to the forehead gave their details before me. We were all then ushered through to the children’s waiting area. Erbie was still out cold on my shoulder, another child with a similar gash to the head was playing noisily in the corner. After what must have been another twenty minutes Erbie woke up, his voice was croaky and his face was still swollen but he was back.

A friendly nurse took his temperature and heart rate then checked his body for a rash, all thankfully normal and as I had already given him Piriton there was nothing they could do accept keep him there for surveillance. He got given a bed in a room with kids TV and I begged a clean nappy and directions to the café.

After 3 hours the swelling had started to subside, he got checked over by a doctor and we left just as toddler nap time was coming to an end and the waiting room in conjunction was starting to fill up.

I was informed there may be secondary reaction 12 hours later but not to worry he was probably fine and thankfully he was.

NB: Casein is used as a carrier protein in certain vaccinations, if it is injected directly into the blood stream of a 3 month old baby with a higher levels of antibodies than a non breastfed baby it may be probable that the body will form an immune response to the protein along with the disease being vaccinated against. Most toddlers grow out of milk protein allergy by the time they are 5 or 6.